An old piece of work…. I still have quite vivid memories of sewing this in the final year of my degree, hunched up in my little corner of the school of art studio (the room on the left at the top of the stairs).

It was always very quiet up there (I wonder where all my fellow students did their best work?), and it smelt like a wonderful old art school should smell. Safe and quite comforting.

A fairly bad photograph of how my easel looks at this very moment in time….

I went back to some old (lacklustre) paintings that needed a little cheering up, things that had never quite felt finished… Some have been greatly improved, I fancy! Some – there is, quite simply, no hope. Into the bin with you.

Always satisfying to be able to rescue something, to bring a painting back to life. Proper pictures of resurrected paintings later this week (she says).

Emma Tann

Giving my paintings titles does not come easily. There is no “concept”, no meaning. They are simply beautiful colours, shapes – does a label get in the way of the painting? Will a name remind a viewer of something else, will preconceptions and associations get in the way of seeing the painting as it really is, for it’s own sake?

Rothko’s paintings always seem to have unobtrusive, subtle names. There are an awful lot of untitled and numbered works, and those that simply reference the colours on the canvas.

No over-thought, contrived names here. I would rather spend my time painting. The image matters, not the name.